


Not in Life, Not in Death

by PennySerenade



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Drama, Fanart, POV Multiple, Poor Héctor, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennySerenade/pseuds/PennySerenade
Summary: “How many times must I turn you away?”A few of the times Imelda rejected Héctor's attempts to reconcile.





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing Imelda thought, when she sees his long-dismissed face, was -- _too young._

For a second, she neglects her deep-rooted anger as shock overthrew the mantle. Horror and curiosity mingled together, leaving a sour taste in her mouth. Even if she no longer had a tongue. 

She could immediately tell when he approached; arms wide and teary eyed. The same vocal cord –-  _why does she still remember that?_   The same hair. The same gangly motions. Imelda stood frozen still as the family reunions officer departs from her side, when Héctor rushes forward, declaring, “I’m her husband, I’m her husband!”

All she could do is stare.

“Imelda! Oh Imelda, _mi amor,_ I’m so – ”

She slaps him. 

Who the hell even knows how pain works here… She’s still processing everything from that long welcoming-seminar. Her hand does feel tingly afterwards, or _was that just from touching him_?

“Do not touch me! I neverwant to see you again after this, understand _? Never._ ”

His eyes are young and intense and sad and…

She turns on her heel and walks in the direction she’d been advised to go -- pulling out her new map. Imelda opted to live in an apartment. It’ll be enough until the others come to join her. And until then, she’ll work on the shoe shop. She’ll have them set up in no time.

 _It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay_ that she’s alone. Had she not been alone _before,_ a very long time ago? This was nothing in comparison.

Her older, blood family had been forgotten and scattered. Imelda felt a spark of guilt over it. Aside from her silly brothers, _gracias a Dios_ for Oscar and Felipe, she’d been estranged from her childhood family for most of her adult life. All because of _him_. Imelda shook her shoulders out, and tries to focus on the map. Maybe after she got settled, she would find Julio’s parents. They had been on their ofrenda.

But she could sense hispresence, a few feet behind her, like a looming curse.

She refuses to turn around and give him the satisfaction. She'll treat him like the pestering gnat he was being. He doesn’t deserve nostalgia, because that’s why he’s here, isn’t it? The dead get their fill of the living, or the recently departed -- the glow of life fresh off their bones. 

“Imelda _, por favor_.” His voice is a soft melody now, void of his previous cheer. “Let us talk.”

The map becomes shaky in her hands. Why is she alone with him? Imelda wonders if she should make a complaint at the Department of Family Reunions. For now, she just wanted to find a place rest her head. A day ago, she had been alive, making shoes…

“I know, I know it’s been too long. It’s been for me, too.”

“I don’t want to see you, Héctor.”

“If we could just talk for a moment, I have so many questions - ”

“You have questions?!” She fully turns around. “You’re the one who has questions _for me?”_

“Eh… yes, yes of course I do!”

Imelda hates how she can still detect his nervous tone. He was always better at being carefree and happy. And that feels like a stake in her heart. _He was carefree and happy, away from you._

“So, I raise a child on my own. No help from you, no notice from you, no nothing from you! And you have questions? _Ha!”_

“What questions do you have, then?” he pleads, his hat against his heart. “I’ll answer any of them.”

“You’re not worth the time.”

“What do you mean? We have all the time in the world.” Héctor expands his hand to the large sky, where twinkling lights hovered over buildings. Then he laughs dryly, almost like he doesn’t quite believe his own words.

“I will not indulge your foolish games.” She tosses her head.

“Ah, so you remember then?” Héctor smiles, and crowds her vision.

"You’re in my way,” Imelda seethes through gritted teeth. “I have important things to do, and obviously you don’t, but do not interrupt me.”

“Allow me to help! Y'know, I’ve been through this before.”

“I do not need help from the likes of you.”

“The likes of me?” He sounds amused.

It made her want to want to toss his bones in the river. “Músico…” she scoffs, eyeing his dingy mariachi suit.

“Ay… yes still the starving artist.” He pats his chest.

Imelda grits her teeth. She can’t believe he feels no remorse. This man was worse than she expected.

Héctor eyes her, with his one-sided humor. But his face grows serious, when he sees he was unsuccessful at softening her edges; like he might have once-upon-a-time, when they both wore skin and nerves and warm hands.

“Imelda...” he starts.

“I don’t want to hear it! I don’t! Please just go, Héctor. Do me this one thing, for once.”

He looks torn apart. Imelda tries to revel in that. Even if it feels like she’s drowning –- but the dead don’t drown. They carry on.

“I died, you know? In case … you didn’t … I died in 1921, in December, I can hardly remember what day now. From _food poisoning_ of all things...” He lets out a frustrated groan -– like that still bothered him, after all these years.

His face is so young.

It’s almost impossible not to believe it. When he looks and sounds exactly like the last time she saw him. Well… maybe not exactly like the last time. It had been a few months since she saw him, before December 1921… So, Lord knows how much he changed in those long days away from home. And who knows if he’s lying? He’d been tall and lanky since turning sixteen. Who’s to say he wouldn’t have been the same, at age thirty?

“If you don’t believe me, go back to the Department of Family Reunions. They'll have records.”

Imelda would rather fill out a restraining order.

“They’ll think it’s funny in any case…” Héctor laughs nervously. “I’ve been there a lot, you see... but don’t believe every tall-tale you hear.”

Imelda continues walking.

“It’s nothing bad, don’t worry. Mostly has to do with the bridge,” he rambles. “I don’t know much, but I do know you’ve been an upstanding citizen. I haven’t done anything to shame you.”

She looks up at him, this time.

“Not much anyway.” He sheepishly shrugs. She always caught his little white lies.

 _As if I care what he’s done here,_ Imelda inwardly fumes. And she stomps down her inner curiosity.

“It’s just… fifty-three years is a lot of time here. Especially if you… don’t cross the bridge?” he probes.

Ah. 

So, that’s it. 

He wants to cross. He thinks she’ll still have some power over that? _Bastardo egoísta!_

“I’m dead, Héctor. I can’t help you with your business,” she keeps her voice cold and detached.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant! I was just curious, one of my questions you see…”

"So, you blame me, then? For your own fault?" She re-imagines all the theories she once pondered over her husband's disappearance. "How did I not know you weren’t on some other woman’s ofrenda? Some other child putting up your photo?”

“Imelda!” he sounds scandalized. “I never, you don’t think? Nothing ever – ”

“It doesn’t matter, Héctor.” She strives to keep her voice passive, and detach herself from this whole mess. “It really doesn’t. The past is the past, and so let us keep it there. I don’t want to see you.  _Please_ , respect my wishes.”

“Well, you see, the thing is…” he stutters, embarrassed, and clamors to regain footing. “It’s not the _past_ for  _me_ , I thought about you every day... Every day I was on tour, and every day I was in this Land, away from you." 

Imelda shakes her head.

“I love you...” He looks as self-conscious as the first time he said it to her. When they were only teenagers, and he started playing his guitar to fill the awkward silence. She let it go on longer than she should have, but she loved teasing him then. It was enough to see his sunny face, when she said it back, and then they –-

“I don’t love you.”

Héctor winces. His skinny shoulders drop.

She knows she’ll picture that, later tonight. His face. And that’s the secret she’ll never tell her family -- how easy it is to get sucked back in.

So, it’s better to get this out of the way now. The further his presence circulates around her, the further she’ll be pulled into his orbit. It’s better for her to be cruel and let him go on doing… whatever the hell he’s been doing in the Land of the Dead. It’s none of her business, anyway.

He reaches out to her shoulder.

“Do not touch me!” she screams. His touch hurts. His young, lithe hand against her shiny bones. Does it matter that hers were new and pearly, and his were yellowing? She could still feel their difference right down to the bone. She felt every year she grew old without him.

She can’t bear that. She was Imelda Rivera. She single-handedly raised a family from the ground. But she couldn’t bear this. She felt old and silly and bitter. Hector looks mournfully at her, as she collects her bearings and returns to the map. She shuffles farther away, and thank goodness he wasn’t following.

“It’s that way,” he calls out, pointing in the opposite direction.

And to Imelda’s great disdain -- he was right. 

When she arrives at the small apartment building, she realizes, with terror and worry at once, Héctor knows where she'll be living. She was alone, without her army, and he knows how to locate her.

What if he tore down her wall, brick by brick, and he was let back inside by the small part of her that still wondered, _when she was alive_ , where he exactlywas? If he was hungry? Was he playing new songs? Was he still as funny as she remembered in her dreams?

Imelda turns to the landlord. “Do you house any other apartments?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol sorry if this is redundant -- cause it's pretty much just Imelda rejecting him. And it's probably been done before, but I just like being sad about Hector :D


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow, no matter how well Imelda succeeded at driving Héctor away from her mind, he’d crawl back to her side. It was a strange sensation to become accustom to again -– Héctor in the flesh. Well, not quite the flesh.

One afternoon, he caught her walking home from the small store she rents. It’s not like she could shut her windows and live as a recluse.

“ _Por Favor_ , I have so many questions about Coco. We don’t even have to talk about us, can’t we at least talk about Coco? We’re bothher parents.”

“No! There is no “we.” You were not there! You weren’t there to _parent_ her!”

Héctor feels the first prick of anger towards his wife, like a finger slice from a sharp guitar pluck. For a second, it feels nostalgic -– the last time he was angry at Imelda was when she sewed the laces of his pants backwards for revenge, after he officially decided to take the tour with Ernesto. But they laughed about it later that night… and then she started crying and asking him to stay, again. _Dios Mios_ , did that hurt to remember. After all these years of guilt, he never blamed her for the lack of pictures on the ofrenda. It was his fault. But to say that Coco doesn’t, at least, belong half to him? That was nonsense. He will always be her papa.

“Yes, I did! Until I died! Imelda, I died at twenty-one. Dropped dead in the street. And I know, I know, it doesn’t compare to raising a child alone, but it wasn’t like I was off living grandly. I was miserable, lost from you, always thinking about you.”

“Good! I’m glad you were miserable! You left. No matter which way it happened, _you left.”_

There was a long pause.

“Every year, I would think about how old you both were now..."

“Stop!”

He continues, holding his hat to his chest. “And hope you were at least healthy and happy, together. Even if I could never catch up. I used to worry you’d think me a child, when you finally… arrived… here.”

Imelda covers her ears, out of habit, and turns her back.

Yet, she can still hear him. “But it was enough knowing you had a long life. To imagine all the things you were doing…”

The only  _Dia de los Muertos_ offering he ever received was imagination -– never to see Imelda’s few changing gray hairs (she aged as gracefully as she danced), Coco sprout from child to lady (did she still like being called by her childhood nickname?), or make sure they were fed and full and singing. He never saw any of it. He could only hope.

“And every year I couldn’t pass the bridge, I thought maybe something was wrong. Maybe something happened to my photo. Maybe to our _casa_. Maybe… you re-married and… he… wouldn’t let you put up the picture.”

Héctor waits for her response, to see if his longtime worries were confirmed. Fifty-odd-years in the Land of the Dead offers an abundance of daydreaming. Or nightmares. He constantly thought about his wife, not just memories of the past in their intimacy and warmth, but of the future, and what man would be putting hands over Imelda. Her tanned skin, curly hair, moonlight eyes. Pain and undeserved jealousy momentarily distract him.

She doesn’t answer. Hector gulps. “Or maybe… you never knew I was dead? Which I _think_ is the case, and I’m _so_ sorry about – ”

“ _Idiota!_ It doesn’t matter what I thought! You were gone, it doesn’t matter why!” She starts walking faster.

He briskly follows behind. “But it does. Ernesto never told you? I don’t know why! Do you? Did you ever talk to – ”

She spins around and stamps down on his toes. He lets out a wounded grito.

“I do not speak of music or musicians! I do not look for it, I do not care! Music is dead to my _familia_. Now go away, _cabrón_.”

Héctor hops alongside her, keeping her exact pace.

“He didn’t tell you I died. He didn’t tell anyone about my songs either, but you’ve heard them, eh? _My songs --_  you must remember. The ones I played at home, maybe some you remember from the letters?”

“I see that’s all you still care about. You haven’t changed one bit,” her voice is hot bitterness, like the final coal in a fire.

“No, no! I don’t really care about music like that anymore, I swear. I’m just trying to understand.”

“And what does that even mean…” she huffs mostly to herself.

“I don’t know what it means, and I don’t know why he did it. He was always _loco_ about the spotlight, maybe he didn’t want to share, now that I was dead. But that’s not what matters, his disloyalty proves mystory.” Héctor motions toward his chest. “Please listen.”

Imelda can’t help but glance sideways. She wants to forget, and she couldn’t rid her own bones -- the desire to forget him so deep in her marrow by now. But still... curiosity ate away at some soft part inside of her. A corner she tries to squish down, further and further, but it occasionally molds itself past steadfast anger; the strict yet sometimesfickle gatekeeper.

“He took my guitar, my songs, and he didn’t tell you about me! It’s all hidden under his stupid ambition. Don’t you see? Didn’t you think it was strange, when he made it big with my songs? If I left you for music, then wouldn’t I be up on stage, too? Wouldn’t my name be up there?”

“It doesn’t...” she began.

“It does matter!” he interrupts. “If it was between family or music, as you say, then why didn’t I have either one?”

Imelda stood still at his explanation. She looks at his young eyes, his jet-black hair with not a stitch of gray.

She could tell there was some truth in his claims.

When she saw Ernesto’s solo tour posters, all those years ago, she stopped dead in her tracks. She immediately looked for her husband’s name, but why wasn’t he shown? And as years went by, she overheard a radio while walking through town and there it was –-  _“Remember me, though I have to say goodbye_ …” She rushed into an alley to gag and dry heave. And then those stupid pictures on the neighbor’s television, during the sixties. One of the only two televisions in town and it had to be her neighbor. In the summer, they’d keep all the windows down and if she passed by, she caught fragments of songs; melodies from a lifetime before, crooned in a much gentler voice… The worst was the awful statue in La Plaza. She stopped going altogether, which was easy, she had been avoiding mariachis for a long time.

Those painful, awful moments. Living in a town perpetually celebrating _that_ man. And why wasn’t he with Héctor anymore? She tried mailing letters to Ernesto in the beginning, but that dwindled, and it was impossible to locate a direct address due to his constant traveling.

Ernesto never came back home to Saint Cecilia, so she didn’t have to wonder if she’d interrogate him or not. But of course she wondered about her husband… maybe Héctor sold the songs, ran off, and lived with another woman? One who wasn’t so cross and expecting things of him all the time…

She couldn’t tell her family, besides Oscar and Felipe. It’s not how they saw her; bitter and weepy. They saw her as the matriarch who raised Coco; who created their family business. She couldn’t tell them about Héctor and Ernesto. It would burden them. Drag them down a path of abandonment and agony. No, she had to do it all alone.

All alone.

All.

Alone.

And then pain from a twenty-two-year-old girl emerges. _“Don’t go Héctor, mi amor. Please, stay. We want you here!”_ She begged him. She didn’t care about the money he promised, the opportunity. She only wanted him. Embarrassment and shame fill her head. She can’t believe she begged.

Imelda remembers what kept her strong all those years -- after almost eaten alive by poverty and worry and heartbreak and public scandal and lewd men awaiting. She chose to forget. And it served her well, at least better than _his_ love ever did.  

Héctor hasn’t been silent, while she gathered these thoughts. He’s still prattling away about Coco.

“And how wasshe when you left? What is she _doing_?”

Imelda takes a calculated step backward. Héctor's eyes grow worried. He knows that vengeful look -- never directed at him before, but now…

“I don’t care. I don’t carewhat Ernesto did or didn’t do. I don’t carewhat you do, either. _Now go away_.”

She rushes down the corner. Her building is not too far, now.

Héctor is all placating panic at her side. “Okay, okay, I understand why you feel that. But... Coco! Did Coco say anything about ‘Remember Me?’ Did she… what did she… was she mad at it? Was she confused..."

He wanted to curl up and die all over again, when he first heard ‘Remember Me’ in the Land of the Dead. The bastardized song a mockery of Coco’s tender lullaby. He sang it every night to her, even while in the scummy hotels with Ernesto _–- "Have some sense, mi amigo! We need to use that song. It’ll be a hit!”_

But Héctor could never do that. It belonged only to Coco –-  _“I told you, stop asking. It’s for her...”_

Now after all this time… what did Coco think? Maybe she didn’t _remember_ …

But Imelda keeps her lips sealed tight. Héctor knows he won’t get anything else out of her at this point, but he has to keep trying -– just like every dogged attempt to cross the bridge.  _It’ll never work_ , a deep dark part of him says.

“Coco… what’s she like now?" 

She walks faster, holding the front of her dress to keep from tripping. 

“Is she like you? Like me? …Like some whole other creature, maybe? We used to laugh about that, remember? Maybe she’d be like your great-aunt Gloria, who you never met. Heh, that was funny...”

At last, her doorway appeared.

“Was she married? Did she have any children?”

Imelda stomps up the stairs, not looking back, but could feel that Hector at least retained enough common sense not to follow the stone steps. 

And he begs, just like she did all those years ago.

“Imelda, please don't, I love – ”

She shuts the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just me reconciling some of the facts the characters might have in the film. Imelda probably knew Ernesto’s songs belonged to Hector, at least some of them. She probably wondered what happened, but also why wouldn’t Ernesto send word that her husband died? It wasn’t a conceivable scenario, so thinking Hector ran off made the most sense. But I like the in-between moments of possible wonder — like wait what the heck?? That was my husband’s bed-time song for our daughter??


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof this isn’t even long and I had most of this written, but I’ve been so lazy finishing the last few pages. ANYWAY, this is the final two chapters. I’ll be here waiting on a Coco spin off TV series!

Héctor never missed an attempt to cross the bridge. But his schemes came in flows. Sometimes, simply hoping his photo magically appeared was all he could muster. However, when the inevitable came, he still had it in him to, at least, run past security.

It always reminds him of the first year, when his photo was strangely unfound.

“This cannot be right… my wife would...”

“I’m sorry señor, but there’s many in line."

“No, look again!”

The gate-assistant put down his file.

“I did so twice already, there is no photo record. Now please…” He tried to keep a polite tone. Missing ofrenda photos were an emotional thing, but there was nothing to be done.

Héctor stood by as another pearly white skeleton stepped in his place.

He felt like a lost child. Everything in this  _estúpido_ afterworld made me him feel like a weak legged lamb, just born and wailing for their mother. Didn’t he wander the streets as a teenager, in another life, aggravating the elderly Sisters and ever patient Priest? Anger momentarily ripped through him. He was  _not_ a child.

He had his own child waiting. Héctor pretended to turn back, but at the last moment made a running jump towards the bridge.

“AH! We need an officer!”

When a huge skeleton in uniform appeared in front of the flowery bridge, Héctor dropped to the floor in a heap of gangly bones. He didn't understand why others won’t utilize their frames in the same manner. Maybe it’s because he has no shame and too much to lose.

“Hey! Get back here!”

His bones rearranged themselves quickly, like Coco’s Noah’s Ark puzzle pieces. “ _See, Papa?”_ she'd say, when she put them together as fast as she could. The flower bridge was only feet away.

It was officially explained later, at the Department of Family Reunions, if there’s no photo, there’s no crossing the bridge. Not only set in laws and rules, but in spirit. He’ll never see his family if a photo was not presented -- as was custom nowadays. Instead, he’ll sink below the flowers, deep below, unnoticed by the living.

"We understand this is your first time offense, and how difficult - "

“But... there must be some way!” Héctor’s interrupted. Optimism born in his bones. “What did they used to do? When there was no such thing as photos and – ”

“The dead were remembered in other ways," the woman tiredly explained. These were the busiest days of the year. “In clay and buildings and art. But our world changes along with the living.” She waves around them. “This is all possible because  _they_ allow it to be so. People are remembered longer now, not just because the living also have longer lifespans, but in their inventions and lifestyles. It’s fundamentally tied. It’s just the way it is. Believe me, I’ve seen a lot.”

Héctor stared with wide eyes. He’s been assured, since his arrival, if he has a living family then all will be well. Surely, he possessed a photo -- a modern, young man such as himself. _Well, I do have a headshot photo right now, Ernesto and I both took headshots for the tour, it's in my pocket_.. he inwardly groaned at this twisted fate. 

He has the  _worst_ luck, despite all that squandered optimism and hope. Who even dies from food poisoning, anymore? 

“Funny how all this innovation doesn’t help me in any way.”

“But sir, we offer programs for those struggling...”

Ah, that was familiar. Charity. But just like in life, it doesn’t last long.

And so, began his annual bridge-crossing. Or lack of bridge-crossing. Some years were simply checking the photo log, to see if this was indeed the lucky year, and when luck fanned out, blindsiding past security was always an option.

His schemes ebbed and flowed. There were many disguises -- hoping maybe he looked like another poor  _bastardo_ on someone else’s ofrenda. He’d select people he’d seen in town, those who had the shiniest bones and wealth of family. Or when vehicles became fast… well, he’s a little ashamed to say he’d definitely would have been denied license to drive in another life. Eventually when the strange looking scanners came, he hoped the blinking green light might say something enlightened for once –- maybe, all these years, the bridge-security were the ones messing things up.

But no matter the predictable, yet still consistently heartbreaking, outcome of his missing photo, Héctor always tries.

Well… the same could not  _exactly_ be said of his attempts to talk with Imelda.

He learned long ago to give her space, if she was angry. But this was unlike anything he’d ever seen. And he knew why, he knew the stomach sinking reason -- Imelda lived a life without him. She grew up. And beyond him.

But this year, after another failed bridge crossing, he decides to refocus efforts on his wife. Enough was enough.

He paces in his squalor room, thinking deeply, as giddy shouts from Shantytown surround him. They were kind and caring folk, maybe some a bit rowdy, but they did sit a lot. Too much. He still has plans.

It had been months since he directly talked to her -- not that he didn’t often show up in market squares she attends, to watch from afar, but he so badly craves more.

Oscar and Felipe had joined her. They’d only given Héctor a slight sympathetic look, before walking right by him as if he truly was a ghost. 

She makes shoes now. Her business blooming as beautifully as her lively eyes. It made him smile when he found out.  _Of course, she made shoes_. When she always needed more and more to take off, in order to threaten the likes of their terrible neighbor, whose pesky goat kept getting lose in their yard and eating their chicken’s seeds. Héctor didn’t like to use threats, and Imelda had enough for the both of them. “Manly” they called her. His Imelda, manly? They just didn’t understand passion.

But this was a different minefield. He  _wishes_ she’d take a shoe to him.  _Anything_. All he's gotten in return is barely an icy response.

Imelda said to stay away. More like commanded it, many times, in a cold voice. And he could hardly deny her anything.  _Dios Mio_ , except the one thing she did ask -– “ _Just stay Héctor, you can just skip the train, please don’t go_...” 

He shook his head; wincing at the pain. It hurt too much to dwell on those painful memories.

Instead, turning his memory to a much brighter moment, he thought of the first time he sang with a bullheaded girl in Saint Cecilia.

* * *

_In La Plaza, Héctor was accustomed to being ignored by the townsfolk. To them, he was a new musician, and they didn’t take kindly to change. They were nicer when Ernesto was around, with his crooning voice and well-respected parents._

_“C’mon! Play Cielito Lindo for me!” A man passed by with a mocking dance. “Ay ay ay!”_

_Well, he’d take that over the stone-cold faces. And in any case, he might as well play the popular, romantic song._

_She was due for a walk any moment now._

_Imelda. One year older than he. But he’s known that for years. Pesky little brothers that she stopped watching, when she swayed to the music as she walked by. Sometimes they would even talk. Most times now._

_“Canta y no Ilores,_

_Porque cantando se alegran,_

_Cielito lindo, los corazones...”_

_The too-syrupy-tune was beyond his usual tastes. But right now, with spring blooming, and Imelda surely on her way, what’s so bad about a romantic melody?_

_“None of your songs today?” she inquired, appearing suddenly, with a rise of her eyebrow. Like she was disappointed in him._

_His heart beating faster than his guitar strumming._

_“You know they only like what they know.” He motioned the instrument at the distant town square. “Saint Cecilia isn’t known for their burgeoning tastes.”_

_“So you only play for an audience?” She finally started smiling a little_ _._   _He loved that it always took so long; it felt like a reward._   _“I thought great músicos_ _played for their heart.”_

_“Well, maybe I’m not so good then.” He knew she’d fall for it…_

_“No, no I was only…” she stopped short, seeing his sunny face. “Ah! What does a street boy like you know, anyway?”_

_“I know you can sing,” he practically begged. He gave up feeling pathetic a long time ago. For some reason, none of that seemed to matter to Imelda. The most baffling girl._

_“Sing a love song with you? Do you want mi madre to kill me?”_

_“It doesn’t have to be Cielito Lindo!” He looked around. Having such a small number of onlookers for once benefitted him -- Imelda would sing._

_“One of yours, then?” She sounded triumphant, like she got her way after all._

_“Fine yes, one of mine.”_

_As if it was actually a bother to him -- someone asking after his own music! She must be like heaven. He doesn’t care what Ernesto says about her temper. All he can see are shiny, dark eyes._

_“Which one, then? I have to pick one you'd know the words to sing along.” He began tuning his guitar in anticipation._

_"I know all the words…”_

* * *

She did. She knew every word. Every song he had at that point. He wonders if she still knew them. 

Suddenly, an idea pops in his head.  _That’s it!_

Music!

They met through music, fell in love through music, doused their daughter in music. What else could possibly lead them back together?

All his failed attempts involved talking and letters. This could work, instead!

He told Imelda he didn’t care about music as much anymore -- which was occasionally true. Sometimes, it made him sad. It’s what separated him from his family in the first place. And it became even worse when Ernesto’s “songs” finally puttered through the Land of the Dead, during the thirties and forties; bitterness a foul wrench in his heart. But for years, he held jobs as a mariachi. He’d play in bars. Served in musical productions at the theater, recruited by Cece, an aunt-like-figure who occasionally hated him, who wasn't so sad when he quit. 

Because when Ernesto died, he took over everything once again. Every corner of the music scene was buzzing about  _Ernesto De La Cruz_. His name in great lights as they celebrated his arrival. From large venues, to surprise scenes in local bars -- he was like the tunes itself; everywhere.

And Héctor, who once viewed songwriting as a piece of the soul, plucked music from his body, like a bloodthirsty tick. Without a consistent job and still no ofrenda record, Shantytown came soon after -- his disregarded bones beginning to take a slight yellow hue.

But that doesn’t mean he stopped playing songs in his room; strumming the  _correct_ version of  _Remember Me._ And serenading the friendly folk in Shantytown.  

Yes, yes, Imelda did say music was  _dead_ to the family, but she might have only been saying that to prove her argument. She loved singing too much to give it up for good! Think of how she sang to Coco; in the bath, at the kitchen table, when they dug up dirt from the garden. How she danced to his love songs...

Grabbing his guitar, he sensed a giddiness that reminded him what it was to be alive. It almost felt like he was a boy again, waiting on the streets for that one serious-faced girl to walk passed. He could feel it in his bones. This was how he’d win her back.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**_“I can’t forgive you, but I will help you…”_ **

“How did you two even meet?” Imelda crosses her arms.

They were waiting in a dressing room for a stressed out seamstress, periodically yelling at Héctor, to disguise them all as Frida Kahlo. It was one of her late-husband’s more outrageous ideas. And more-so, Miguel’s plan! How did he become as  _ridículo?_

“Uhh, long story short,” Miguel breathes out in his well-practiced ‘getting out of trouble’ voice. “It’s ‘cause I thought Ernesto De La Cruz was my great-grandfather.”

“What!” Imelda shouts, simultaneously confused and disgusted by the idea.

When they were young, she didn’t understand how the girls swooned over Ernesto and his thick chin and brutish ways. No one noticed the real artist, lanky and unassuming, yet still playfully boastful, in the background?

 _Enough Imelda_ , she scolded herself. She could get lost in those memories, she knew that well... 

“And why did you think that?” Rosita asks, round eyes beaming with curiosity.

“Well the photo…” Miguel produces the family portrait, with Hector’s missing head. “He had Papa Héctor’s guitar. The exact same one De La Cruz used so I thought…”

Imelda suddenly remembers Héctor attempts in understanding why Ernesto took all the credit, and she feels queasy.

“I  _had_ wondered why I arrived here,  _dead_ , without my guitar.” Héctor folds his arms, sourly. “It had been in my hands...”

Then he looks over Imelda’s conflicted face, and the tell-tale sign she’s worried -- wringing her hands.

“Ay, but Miguel, guess who bought me the guitar?” Héctor nods toward her. She’d been so proud of the anniversary gift.  

_“Mama Imelda?”_

“Si… and now who holds it? A snake.” Imelda shivers at the full circle that life took. She never liked Ernesto; whisking  _her_ husband away as if their musical dúo was Héctor’s only love. Any wife would despise such a mistress. Now, he possessed the guitar that took many months of sewing savings to earn.

“But  _where_ exactly did you meet?”

“Well, once I… left… you guys, I ran into him after he’d gotten in trouble for trying to cross the bridge. Then we made a deal, if he got me to Ernesto, I’d hang up his photo. Eventually that’s when we found out about… Ernesto… He threw us both in the pit to hide what he’d done, and stole Héctor’s photo. So here we are, back to the photo.”

“Pretty convenient…” She eyes Héctor suspiciously, as if expecting him to say he’d been lurking around their private business, instead. It wouldn’t be the first time.

He shrugs his hands, with a guilty smile.

“Also, Dante lead me straight to him!” Miguel announces grandly, and hugs the spirit dog. “We were destined to meet.”

“Ah,  _chamaco_ …” He places an arm around the boy.

Imelda raises her head quickly at his voice, and watches Héctor’s eyes grow soft as he stares down at Miguel. It’s like her shoe hammer missed aim and struck a nail in her heart. His tender voice, soft and strong, when he hushed Coco to sleep. When he’d sing to her giant belly –- “ _They can hear us you know!” “Si, Héctor. You think I don’t feel them kicking me?”_

Imelda wants to raise her hands to her ears once more. Her mouth trembles. This is why she couldn’t even pretend to be tolerate his presence. Barely answering stray questions he’d shoot off about Coco, whenever he appeared out of thin air over the years –- “ _Hola, Imelda I see you’re busy... but ay! Could you just tell me if Coco... wait!”_

It was always too _easy_ with him. It’s almost ridiculous. She’d been the most serious girl in town and yet, how  _easy_ was it to fall in love with the  _loco musico_? To sing along as he strummed his guitar? And too _easy_ to be hurt by him. Once she got around thinking about Hector, it never stopped.

 _Just breathe through it_ , she tells herself. She was not done being angry.

“If it wasn’t for Miguel, I’d never know it was Ernesto… who…” Héctor trails off.

Still perturbed his once-upon-a-time-best-friend murdered him in cold blood.

It all makes sense to him now -- how Ernesto refused to sit down and talk, in the Land of the Dead. He previously thought his lack of acquaintance was from guilt and embarrassment. And bitterness kept Héctor away as well. But now, he knows Ernesto was only covering his tracks. The guitar. The songs.  _Dios Mio,_ how could he have not guessed it!

“So, you had no idea?” Julio slowly inches forward. Still a little skittish of the man he’d been warned against; in life and death. This is the longest he’d ever seen him; usually shooed away by his frightening mother-in-law.

“Well no, he was my friend since childhood…” But Héctor feels foolish admitting it out loud.

“And he never saw any of his movies until tonight,” Miguel picked up the mantel, loving a good story.

“So? Neither –” Oscar begins.

“Did we –”

“What do movies –”

“Have to do with anything?” Felipe finishes.

“Oh! Well, Ernesto used Papa Hector’s  _own death_ in one scene. It was line-for-line, everything Ernesto said, right before  _poisoning_ him.”

The family gasped. Imelda saw red. That devil had no integrity!  _And poisoned_?

“Seems Ernesto will always lack originality,” Imelda says, through gritted teeth.

“Alright show time,” Cece sighs, sounding tired. “You’re lucky Frida likes the boy.”

”And hates Ernesto!” Miguel gaily points out. And that, they all can agree on. 

* * *

In the dark pit of a… papaya pit… the Rivera family squishes together. Apparently, this was the fastest way to get behind stage. There’s no way they’d get passed Ernesto’s security without him noticing Héctor.

Imelda sighs. This night was almost over. This one thing has to be done, and then they could return to their normal Dia de los Muertos. _Normal_. It seems unlikely anything could be normal after this. She feels a crushing anxiety that doesn't seem ready to back down. She’s been too near Héctor, for too much time -- the last time she saw him for this long, they both had noses and skin and tongues... and everything... It made her dizzy. 

Even in the darkness, somehow, she could sense where he stands. Bony tall. Just like before -- she wonders how much was the same about him? How much was different?

“Augh,” Héctor suddenly groans, and grips his chest. A glow of light casts over the darkness. Everyone gasps.

“Papa Héctor!”

The glow of his body dims, and pitch blackness took over once more. “It’s alright Miguel, I’m fine now.” He sounds exhausted. 

Imelda is frozen in her spot. Héctor is being forgotten. He’s on his last leg, and who knows how long he’ll survive the night.

She  _wanted_ to forget him. For years and years and years. She wanted Coco to leave those memories behind, and march on with what the future gave them -- which didn’t include him, evidently. Otherwise, it’d hurt too much.

But she didn’t know this would be destroying Héctor. She never wished that. She just wanted to move on best as she could. And though she  _always_ honored Dia de los Muertos, she never  _quite_ fully believed ghosts were watching them. The church taught heaven, their culture taught remembrance; each letting loved ones live on. And that all seemed to make sense. But she never thought somewhere, out there, was a skeleton waiting on her.

And in the pit of her long-abandoned stomach, Imelda feels a gut-wrenching sorrow. Something whispering,  _“too late.”_

But she quickly stomps the dreadful feeling down. Nothing was ever  _too late_ for Imelda Rivera. 

* * *

_“You said love of your life?”_

He wanted to know if she meant it. His voice undeniably giddy with surprise. How strange he can still sound like the boisterous young man she once knew, and yet, also stunned with an aging sentiment she didn’t quite recognize. Like her love was a waxy, old candle to blow upon.

And though she claimed she didn’t know  _what she said_ , Imelda always knew the answer. Isn’t it why she exiled music from their life? She always knew. She never truly forgot, hard as she tried. All the years she asserted he was long forgotten from her life, lived a secret ofrenda inside her heart. Faces and pictures of him locked away. And she’d visit, every so often. Some days more than others. They filled her up; pain and pleasure. Maybe its time to choose the latter. 

She thought she understood the greater good -- keeping music away from the family, less they be scalded by its touch; like she and Coco. But heavens, it's time to go back. 

Because as she sings, on a bright stage no less, “ _Si porque te quiero quieres, llorona_ …” Imelda feels a familiar surge of excitement -- mingled with love, delight, and memories.

And after the performance, when she runs into Héctor's arms, his handsome photo gripped tight in her hands, she can’t help but acknowledge they’re both running towards something, once again. Together. Perhaps it wasn't too late, after all.

* * *

It’s when his bones cool off, the bright glow dimming to a nonexistent hue, on the outskirts of the grand stage (the sort of stage he once promised their family) does she fully see her husband. The whole of him. None of the glory and musical inspiration he pledged; all the songs he said he’d write for them to dance to when he returned home. The distant memory of anger, in those misguided and broken promises, began to chip away; like sanding a new shoe. She sees only Héctor; still soft and strong, all at once, under her hands.

The boy she met, the young man he departed as, and the old man he became, here, in the Land of the Dead.

_“Imelda…”_

But wait, just how long had he been missing shoes?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this because it seemed to make sense how maybe Imelda was softening (internally of course) towards Héctor that night, leading up to her saying, “that’s for murdering the love of my life!”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a dumb doodle cause Imelda always cared about shoes. Please forgive Hector's arms, they're crossed behind his head D:

        "


End file.
